Ill. Student Gets Detention for Hugging

townhall ^ | Nov. 6, 2007

[Coleus]

Four-year-old suspended for hugging teacher's aid

[Coleus]

Mascoutah Middle School.
mascoutahmiddle@mascoutah19.k12.il.us

Megan Coulter

coulter? a future conservative in the works?

[SilvieWaldorfMD]

This is PC at its worst. This is the reason why we’re the laughingstock of the world — when it comes to absurdities like this. Guess the ACLU won’t be helping this poor girl, no?

[Road Warrior ‘04]

I think it was her last name that did her in, not the hugging.

[G8 Diplomat]

a school policy banning public displays of affection

They have the same rule in Iran. Kinda scary, really...

You can't talk, you can't chew gum, you can't have cell phones or MP3 players, you can't wear hoods or hats or sunglasses...Is there anything that IS allowed in public school these days?

[Admin Moderator]

The title you created “Illinois middle schooler is given detention for hugging 2 friends at school” was not the title at the source.

Please do not alter titles of any published articles. We’re trying to reduce the number of duplicate threads.

[Popman]

District Superintendent Sam McGowen said that he thinks the penalty is fair and that administrators in the school east of St. Louis were following policy in the student handbook.

No, moron, I'm sure the policy is to stop kids from engaging in sexual type displays of affection.

You going to suspend the football coach after he slaps his star running back on the ass for making the game winning touchdown ?

[mylife]

Meanwhile... under the table in the teachers lounge...

[Shimmer]

So I guess if my kids went there, I couldn’t hug them goodbye while on campus, or they’d get detention.

I understand no PDAs, but I sort of thought it meant romantic ones. Not little girls hugging each other goodbye.

[blackdog]

Free birth control in middle schools, but no hugging?

Kinda short on the forplay cirriculum aren't they?

[G8 Diplomat]

addition to my last post:...you can’t run, you can’t hug, you can’t sit anywhere but your assigned seat, you can’t bring medicines, you can’t have things like metal rulers that are deemed as “weapons” (your HANDS are weapons for crying out loud)...I am now, after 12 years of it, convinced that public school is an f-in prison.

[AnAmericanMother]

Get out.

Homeschool or private school.

But get out.

[aruanan]

District Superintendent Sam McGowen said that he thinks the penalty is fair and that administrators in the school east of St. Louis were following policy in the student handbook.

D.S. (Dumb S---?) Sam, like most school administrators, is brain dead. The PDA referred to in the handbook, if you were to look at the original intent, was to prevent sexualized public displays of affection like making out on school campus. Everybody in the world knows that. But it takes an educator to make no distinction, like the ones who kick a kid out of school for having a 2 inch plastic sword or making a drawing of a gun because they have a "zero tolerance" policy on weapons. Would they have punished for a handshake as a greeting or farewell?

These folks are so far gone that even ridicule cannot make an impression. In my days as an education major, before I went on to bigger and better things, I knew a lot of students just like Sam. They cared; they cared just so damn much. Too bad their degree of intelligence seemed to be inversely proportional to their degree of caring. This is the kind of mentality that folks back in Mark Twain's day treated with tar and feathers and being ridden out of town on a rail.

[SilvieWaldorfMD]

In the meantime, there are publicly-funded Arabic schools in Ohio & New York — and those students meet and greet each other with some sort of physical affection... I just cannot figure this one out...

[blackdog]

Imagine the public school destiny of the poor kid who’s parents name him or her Reagan Coulter Barr?

[driftdiver]

She shoulda had sex with them, that would have been ok in todays schools

[Coleus]

no more tag or dodge ball, teachers in some schools can not correct papers in red ink, you can’t take an aspirin, but you can get an abortion

[cinives]

It took you 12 years ?

[TruthConquers]

Coulter said she and her husband told their daughter to go ahead and serve her detentions because the only other option was a day of suspension for each skipped detention.

"We don't agree with it, but I certainly don't want her to get in more trouble," Coulter said. The couple plan to attend the next school board meeting to ask board members to consider rewording the policy or be more specific in what is considered a display of affection.

"I'm just hoping the school board will open their eyes and just realize that maybe they shouldn't be punishing us for hugs," Megan said.

This is really sad. These parents are so dependent on a sick system. Do they really think that the school board gives a dam??? If they don't agree with it why are they letting this school punish THEIR DAUGHTER for not doing anything wrong??? WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!

[CA Conservative]

You can't talk, you can't chew gum, you can't have cell phones or MP3 players, you can't wear hoods or hats or sunglasses...Is there anything that IS allowed in public school these days?

Actually, all of the things you mentioned are valid restrictions in school today. Talking in class disrupts instruction; gum sticks to floors and desks, requiring time and money to remove; cell phones and MP3 players provide an avenue for cheating on tests and distract from instruction; hoods, hats and sunglasses all deal with gang attire and paraphanalia.

That being said, I think this rule is way too strict and the school needs to exhibit some common sense. The rule is there to stops the kids from making out in the halls, not to stop friends from hugging each other goodbye.